In explaining the hammer throw, Kevin used to tell me (to paraphrase badly) that he was trying to show me the moon, but he could only point. I've found that to be an extremely useful insight both as a coach and as an athlete. There is no magic to the words any coach uses to describe any feeling. While some coaches may use words which are more effective than others in communicating a feeling to a particular athlete, the words they use are only as good as the actions they produce.
When someone tells me to jump, or pull, or shrug, I still have to jump, pull, or shrug correctly. Shrugging in Olympic Lifting, for example, was a mystery to me for years. Up until recently, there were lots of pictures of me looking like a c from the top view, where my front formed the inside of the c. To me, shrugging meant shoulders up, and when weighted, that meant shoulders forward. Now, thankfully, I've come to understand that shrugging actually means shoulders up and back. Talk about a difference in execution. In either case, I would have to call the movement a shrug, but the physical result is dramatically different, and my success in completing heavy lifts is different too.
Sticking with the Olympic Lifting example, in a single session I may be told: jump, pull, shrug, hook grip, weight in my heels, chest up, eyes up, head up, look up, fast elbows, drop under, stay back... and the list continues. As a hammer thrower, cues in this volume were also common - I probably had 10 cues to work on at a minimum in every session. As a less experienced athlete, these sessions used to make me glaze over. I'd try to focus on all the cues in my head, but merely remembering them all, much less executing them, was exhausting and overwhelming. I remember sessions where my best throw could be reduced to about 50% of my ability - we're talking technical meltdown. Only later did I learn that even exceptional athletes can rarely hold more than 2-3 (and really more like 1-2) technical cues in their head at a time, and those cues generally have to be in different phases of the movement. For example, my current cues in lifting are heels down, shoulders up. When I start the lift, I focus on heels down (a.k.a. weight back). Immediately as I start the lift, I shift my focus to shoulders up. If I continue to focus on heels down after the lift starts, it's almost impossible to keep my shoulders up. If I try to focus on both at the same time, there's almost no chance I'll be successful on the lift. Weird.
Some could think this makes it hard to ever learn anything new. Kevin had a great illustration for this as well (the man is a genius). He told me to picture a new cue as though it were a field covered in fresh snow - completely unmarred by any footsteps. He said that each throw focusing on that cue was like a path through that snow. At first, each throw is somewhat independent from the others - like a new path in the snow. Over time, the paths (throws) create a highway through the snow (muscle memory) and it gets very difficult to change the path because of how deeply it's embedded. This is great news for technical events - learning a new piece of a movement is like the new snow - while the other parts of the movement are existing highways. The new movements will be different every time at the start, and it won't be clear exactly where they lead, but the old highways will retain their structure - enabling you to find new paths without losing the old ones. Each time you execute a technical movement, you pick the highway you want to build, and you trust your body to follow the other highways.
Watch out NorCal. Today Carl Paoli helped me find the moon on muscle ups! Now I know what "fastest situp of your life" feels like - I'm planning to spend the next few weeks building my highway :)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Healthy Perspective
There was a time in my life when I suffered from a variety of eating disorders. Initially it was about performing better in sports, after all, if you carry a five pound dumbbell while you run, you'll go slower, so why not lose five pounds and run faster? Subsequently it was about body image, self worth, fear, anger, control, etc. the list goes on.
When I first started CrossFit, I had lost about 20 pounds in the prior year having retired from hammer throwing, and making good on my promise to myself that the second I quit throwing I'd return to my pre-hammer weight (about 170). I told Chris that I wanted to work out, but had no interest whatsoever in talking about diet or nutrition because I'd found something that worked for me (basically, trying to eat healthy-ish and suppress all thoughts of size, weight, or anything related), and I didn't want to drum up old ways of thinking. In other words, "If you talk to me about diet I'm really afraid that my current state of fragile indifference could revert back to full blown eating disorders. Please don't."
Now, a little more than two years later, I have been as light as 158 and as heavy as 178. I have twice cut weight successfully from about 174 to 165 for weightlifting competitions and have once failed royally at the same without restarting my eating disorders. I've learned a tremendous amount about the difference between form and function (focus on the latter tends to help improve the former), and I've fully embraced the concept of the Paleo diet (eat less of what man makes, more of what God makes), although sometimes I fail to put this belief into practice (yes, that was me you saw eating chocolate yesterday for lunch). Interestingly, while my all-time Squat, Deadlift, Clean, Snatch, Bench, etc. PRs have gone up, my weight has stayed essentially the same as when I started CrossFit (apparently something other than weight can move weight), and my clothing size has dropped from a high of 14, to 10 when I started CrossFit, to 6 now. Incredible.
But, let's be honest here, it's not all puppies and rainbows. There are days when I want nothing more than to eat a full pizza, ice cream by the pint, chocolate by the bar, chips by the bag, and a good old fashioned salami sandwich. In all honesty though, any time I eat that stuff now, I really notice a difference in the way I perform, think, and feel. It's increasingly not worth it to me to eat highly processed, salty, sugary crap. I want to feel, perform, and look great, which is much easier when I eat reasonable quantities of foods that are intended for consumption by humans.
Would I like to look more chiseled (think Andrea Ager, Lindsey Smith, Talayna Fortunato)? Unequivocally yes. Have I figured out how to do that in the context of my life? Absolutely not. I work at high intensity 50+ hours every week. I work out at high intensity 5-6 days per week. My life is really intense. A lot of times I don't have the energy to even think about what to make for dinner, much less make it, and the unfortunate thing about Paleo eating is that eating raw chicken is really not a good idea. Do I still need to eat whatever I feel like on occasion just to stay sane? Yes.
Here's the thing. I believe that people have to live in their own context. I have a family history of weight issues. I've struggled to find my own happy medium where my self acceptance, genetics and lifestyle match up. But in the end, I've realized that though I was once proud of a semi-flabby 170 pound body, I can now accept a leanish, muscular 175 without falling into a death spiral. The several times a week college runs to Jack in the Box to eat the highest calorie/dollar order on the menu to sustain my weight (ha!) have become regular home-cooked meals and somewhate frequent treats at natural/local/organic restaurants funded by the high stress job I show up for every day.
It's all a balance. I hope to eat better, look better, and perform better next year, but in the meantime, I'm thankful that I eat better, look better, and perform better than I did last year. Only in the context of gradual improvement can I maintain a healthy perspective (and that's how I got away from the eating disorders too - day by day focusing on the one thing I could do better on that day).
When I first started CrossFit, I had lost about 20 pounds in the prior year having retired from hammer throwing, and making good on my promise to myself that the second I quit throwing I'd return to my pre-hammer weight (about 170). I told Chris that I wanted to work out, but had no interest whatsoever in talking about diet or nutrition because I'd found something that worked for me (basically, trying to eat healthy-ish and suppress all thoughts of size, weight, or anything related), and I didn't want to drum up old ways of thinking. In other words, "If you talk to me about diet I'm really afraid that my current state of fragile indifference could revert back to full blown eating disorders. Please don't."
Now, a little more than two years later, I have been as light as 158 and as heavy as 178. I have twice cut weight successfully from about 174 to 165 for weightlifting competitions and have once failed royally at the same without restarting my eating disorders. I've learned a tremendous amount about the difference between form and function (focus on the latter tends to help improve the former), and I've fully embraced the concept of the Paleo diet (eat less of what man makes, more of what God makes), although sometimes I fail to put this belief into practice (yes, that was me you saw eating chocolate yesterday for lunch). Interestingly, while my all-time Squat, Deadlift, Clean, Snatch, Bench, etc. PRs have gone up, my weight has stayed essentially the same as when I started CrossFit (apparently something other than weight can move weight), and my clothing size has dropped from a high of 14, to 10 when I started CrossFit, to 6 now. Incredible.
But, let's be honest here, it's not all puppies and rainbows. There are days when I want nothing more than to eat a full pizza, ice cream by the pint, chocolate by the bar, chips by the bag, and a good old fashioned salami sandwich. In all honesty though, any time I eat that stuff now, I really notice a difference in the way I perform, think, and feel. It's increasingly not worth it to me to eat highly processed, salty, sugary crap. I want to feel, perform, and look great, which is much easier when I eat reasonable quantities of foods that are intended for consumption by humans.
Would I like to look more chiseled (think Andrea Ager, Lindsey Smith, Talayna Fortunato)? Unequivocally yes. Have I figured out how to do that in the context of my life? Absolutely not. I work at high intensity 50+ hours every week. I work out at high intensity 5-6 days per week. My life is really intense. A lot of times I don't have the energy to even think about what to make for dinner, much less make it, and the unfortunate thing about Paleo eating is that eating raw chicken is really not a good idea. Do I still need to eat whatever I feel like on occasion just to stay sane? Yes.
Here's the thing. I believe that people have to live in their own context. I have a family history of weight issues. I've struggled to find my own happy medium where my self acceptance, genetics and lifestyle match up. But in the end, I've realized that though I was once proud of a semi-flabby 170 pound body, I can now accept a leanish, muscular 175 without falling into a death spiral. The several times a week college runs to Jack in the Box to eat the highest calorie/dollar order on the menu to sustain my weight (ha!) have become regular home-cooked meals and somewhate frequent treats at natural/local/organic restaurants funded by the high stress job I show up for every day.
It's all a balance. I hope to eat better, look better, and perform better next year, but in the meantime, I'm thankful that I eat better, look better, and perform better than I did last year. Only in the context of gradual improvement can I maintain a healthy perspective (and that's how I got away from the eating disorders too - day by day focusing on the one thing I could do better on that day).
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Relative Best
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
When I was in college I attended an Athletes in Action Ultimate Training Camp, and it was the backdrop for several of the formative moments in my philosophies about life. One of the principals taught at these retreats which really stuck with me is that athletes should be competing for an audience of one, meaning that when practicing and competing, athletes should keep in mind that God knows their full potential and whether or not they're striving to reach it. Whatever your stance may be regarding God, or the existence of any God, I have found this to be an incredibly powerful principal in my life for several reasons.
1. I have a set of characteristics which exist. I am innately good at some things and innately bad at some things. I can get better or worse, but I pretty much can't change my fundamental being. With this as a backdrop, I can't blame myself for being right handed or blue-eyed, or credit myself for being coordinated or tall. I have what I have.
2. I have a set of circumstances which exist. Sometimes my life is really hard, sometimes it's really easy. Sometimes I control my circumstances, but sometimes things happen which are completely beyond my control. If I wallow in wishing my circumstances were different, or take wonderful circumstances for granted, I am making a mistake. I need to accept my circumstances as they are, do what I can to change them if I need to, and otherwise just play the game as it unfolds.
3. I have a choice whether or not to use what I have. Any given day, I can choose to make the most of that day, or I can choose to waste the day. This does not mean that I can wake up at 5am, do 2 workouts before breakfast, work my full 10 hours, do another 3 hour workout, prepare and eat a fully perfect paleo dinner, and get 8 hours of sleep, in order to repeat the next day, as I sometimes feel I should be able to do. Rather, it means that given the constraints I face - be it time, energy, enthusiasm, ability, injury, outside circumstances, etc. - I should do the best I can on any given day.
4. Someone out there knows whether I'm doing my best or whether I'm slacking, and I am accountable for my efforts. If I'm honest with myself, I know whether I'm checking the boxes or whether I'm actually applying myself. To an outside observer, it would be impossible to know the difference. Sometimes, my not very good is better than the people around me, but I still need to step it up. Sometimes, my absolute best effort absolutely pales in comparison, and I need to cut myself some slack. This principal is cool because it strips away the comparison and asks me - compared to me, how am I performing?
In summary, if I knew someone who knew my full stat sheet was watching my every move, would I work and train as I do now? I strive daily for that answer to be yes. I want to train and work with integrity - I want to do my best each and every day. Do I succeed? Not always, but I do try to hold myself accountable to this principal. Since applying it I feel my life has had more purpose and I've achieved more success. I can't do better than my best, but I can always do better than my worst.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
When I was in college I attended an Athletes in Action Ultimate Training Camp, and it was the backdrop for several of the formative moments in my philosophies about life. One of the principals taught at these retreats which really stuck with me is that athletes should be competing for an audience of one, meaning that when practicing and competing, athletes should keep in mind that God knows their full potential and whether or not they're striving to reach it. Whatever your stance may be regarding God, or the existence of any God, I have found this to be an incredibly powerful principal in my life for several reasons.
1. I have a set of characteristics which exist. I am innately good at some things and innately bad at some things. I can get better or worse, but I pretty much can't change my fundamental being. With this as a backdrop, I can't blame myself for being right handed or blue-eyed, or credit myself for being coordinated or tall. I have what I have.
2. I have a set of circumstances which exist. Sometimes my life is really hard, sometimes it's really easy. Sometimes I control my circumstances, but sometimes things happen which are completely beyond my control. If I wallow in wishing my circumstances were different, or take wonderful circumstances for granted, I am making a mistake. I need to accept my circumstances as they are, do what I can to change them if I need to, and otherwise just play the game as it unfolds.
3. I have a choice whether or not to use what I have. Any given day, I can choose to make the most of that day, or I can choose to waste the day. This does not mean that I can wake up at 5am, do 2 workouts before breakfast, work my full 10 hours, do another 3 hour workout, prepare and eat a fully perfect paleo dinner, and get 8 hours of sleep, in order to repeat the next day, as I sometimes feel I should be able to do. Rather, it means that given the constraints I face - be it time, energy, enthusiasm, ability, injury, outside circumstances, etc. - I should do the best I can on any given day.
4. Someone out there knows whether I'm doing my best or whether I'm slacking, and I am accountable for my efforts. If I'm honest with myself, I know whether I'm checking the boxes or whether I'm actually applying myself. To an outside observer, it would be impossible to know the difference. Sometimes, my not very good is better than the people around me, but I still need to step it up. Sometimes, my absolute best effort absolutely pales in comparison, and I need to cut myself some slack. This principal is cool because it strips away the comparison and asks me - compared to me, how am I performing?
In summary, if I knew someone who knew my full stat sheet was watching my every move, would I work and train as I do now? I strive daily for that answer to be yes. I want to train and work with integrity - I want to do my best each and every day. Do I succeed? Not always, but I do try to hold myself accountable to this principal. Since applying it I feel my life has had more purpose and I've achieved more success. I can't do better than my best, but I can always do better than my worst.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Priorities must be Prioritized
Tell me your goals and how you spend your time, and I'm pretty sure I could predict with 90+% accuracy whether or not you'll achieve them. How you spend your time reveals how much you value your goal.
In 2007 under the tutelage of Coach Weir, I was training pretty hard for the Olympic Trials in 2008. I believed that I was working hard, I was telling everyone who would listen about my goal, and I was skipping practice to stay at work about 3 out of 5 days per week. I improved a little that year, but needless to say, nowhere near how much I needed to improve in order to be a real contender for a spot on the Olympic team, competing against women who trained full time. In reality, despite what I was thinking and saying, it was more important for me to earn money and start my career than it was to train for the Olympics two years out.
Thankfully, I was coached by a very smart man, and before we began the final year of training leading up to the trials he sat me down and asked me to tell him about my priorities. As I recall after some thought I wrote training, family, work, and friends, in that order. I was hard pressed to order them, because how do you say in black and white that your training comes before your family? The particularly eye-opening part came when he said, ok, now if your priorities really were in that order - training, family, work, friends - would you still be making the day to day choices that you are making now?
Truth be told, my priorities really were in that order at that point (I would have probably quit my job if they had said I couldn't train), but I was allowing external demands on me, primarily the needs of my company, to dictate how I spent my time, and it showed. My career was progressing and my hammer throwing was flailing. My relationship with my family wasn't particularly impacted by my training, other than my physical proximity being so far removed, and I'd never had much time with friends. Problem identified, we immediately we began discussing the changes I needed to make in my mindset and my schedule in order to be successful, and that very day I was able to begin a sincere quest to earn an Olympic spot. I started working harder throughout the day, enabling me to leave work on time, and I didn't get fired. I trained much more consistently, and I improved all but 90cm of how much I needed to improve. In the end, I didn't make it, but I believe I truly did everything within my power to do so, and I rest easily knowing that.
I've reflected on this concept multiple times in my life since, and thankfully the exercise continues to help me structure my time in a way that I am able to progress in reaching my goals. Now as I hope to earn a spot to the CrossFit Games, I can only put my family behind my training for short periods of time before those relationships suffer more than I'm willing to accept. Sometimes I have to be late to CrossFit because it's more important to talk to my mom. Sometimes I have to put CrossFit on the backburner because I need to put my job first. Thankfully, gone are the days when I do these things without recognizing that how I spend my time affects which of my goals I achieve. Any time I begin to lose my bearings I stop to assess what I'm trying to accomplish, and I double check that my schedule is in line.
I'm grateful to Coach Weir for many things, but this lesson may have been the most important of all. How you spend your time is directly correlated to which of your goals you will achieve, and how you spend your time is one of the few things in life you can control.
In 2007 under the tutelage of Coach Weir, I was training pretty hard for the Olympic Trials in 2008. I believed that I was working hard, I was telling everyone who would listen about my goal, and I was skipping practice to stay at work about 3 out of 5 days per week. I improved a little that year, but needless to say, nowhere near how much I needed to improve in order to be a real contender for a spot on the Olympic team, competing against women who trained full time. In reality, despite what I was thinking and saying, it was more important for me to earn money and start my career than it was to train for the Olympics two years out.
Thankfully, I was coached by a very smart man, and before we began the final year of training leading up to the trials he sat me down and asked me to tell him about my priorities. As I recall after some thought I wrote training, family, work, and friends, in that order. I was hard pressed to order them, because how do you say in black and white that your training comes before your family? The particularly eye-opening part came when he said, ok, now if your priorities really were in that order - training, family, work, friends - would you still be making the day to day choices that you are making now?
Truth be told, my priorities really were in that order at that point (I would have probably quit my job if they had said I couldn't train), but I was allowing external demands on me, primarily the needs of my company, to dictate how I spent my time, and it showed. My career was progressing and my hammer throwing was flailing. My relationship with my family wasn't particularly impacted by my training, other than my physical proximity being so far removed, and I'd never had much time with friends. Problem identified, we immediately we began discussing the changes I needed to make in my mindset and my schedule in order to be successful, and that very day I was able to begin a sincere quest to earn an Olympic spot. I started working harder throughout the day, enabling me to leave work on time, and I didn't get fired. I trained much more consistently, and I improved all but 90cm of how much I needed to improve. In the end, I didn't make it, but I believe I truly did everything within my power to do so, and I rest easily knowing that.
I've reflected on this concept multiple times in my life since, and thankfully the exercise continues to help me structure my time in a way that I am able to progress in reaching my goals. Now as I hope to earn a spot to the CrossFit Games, I can only put my family behind my training for short periods of time before those relationships suffer more than I'm willing to accept. Sometimes I have to be late to CrossFit because it's more important to talk to my mom. Sometimes I have to put CrossFit on the backburner because I need to put my job first. Thankfully, gone are the days when I do these things without recognizing that how I spend my time affects which of my goals I achieve. Any time I begin to lose my bearings I stop to assess what I'm trying to accomplish, and I double check that my schedule is in line.
I'm grateful to Coach Weir for many things, but this lesson may have been the most important of all. How you spend your time is directly correlated to which of your goals you will achieve, and how you spend your time is one of the few things in life you can control.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Better Together
I think the public schools may have been feeding their female track athletes jumping beans when I was in high school. For some reason the level of competition in the triple jump in particular was much higher during those years than in the years before or since. I was among the people setting school records, but I wasn't alone - I remember Ashley, Amanda, and a few other girls, all of whom had the ability to emerge victorious from any given competition.
Now, looking back, I'm quite sure it wasn't actually jumping beans. It had to do with the standard we kept raising for each other. Individually and collectively, we continued to test the boundaries of what was possible, and enough of us were involved that we really raised the bar. It's hard to imagine the impossible, but watching someone else do something you never thought they could do certainly draws your own capabilities into question. If Ashley could jump 38', I was sure going to do everything in my power to jump 39'!
I'm so grateful that CrossFit has gained popularity as a training methodology and as a competitive sport because it seems that our social understanding of fitness is benefitting from the same competitive dynamic that enabled me to jump 39' in high school. As a training methodology, it has enabled people who would never have had the opportunity to do an Olympic lift to become proficient, has strengthened people who couldn't do a single pullup to string 20+ together consecutively, and has taught people that health through exercise doesn't have to be arduous or miserable. As a competitive sport, it has given new purpose to my life, and the lives of many former athletes, who partially defined themselves as successful exercisers only to graduate from high school or college and be left with no option but to become "has beens."
Together, as CrossFitters, as trainers, as people generally interested in changing the "possible," we are changing the collective understanding of aging, parenthood, and female strength. Thanks to the masters athletes, I no longer believe that it will be hard for me to stand and sit when I am old and gray because I see them able to do much more than that, and quickly, with high intensity. Thanks to the CrossFit moms, I no longer see my 30's as a time when I will have babies, get fat, and wish I had more time to work out. Thanks to the CrossFit guys I no longer see my strength as something to be ashamed of as a woman, although I was told recently (by a non-CrossFitter) that I should probably not cut my hair short again so that my hair can hide all my muscles.
I am better because I've trained alongside people who were great throughout my athletic career. I am better still because I've found a training methodology which is just impossible enough that it is successfully redefining the possible.
Now, looking back, I'm quite sure it wasn't actually jumping beans. It had to do with the standard we kept raising for each other. Individually and collectively, we continued to test the boundaries of what was possible, and enough of us were involved that we really raised the bar. It's hard to imagine the impossible, but watching someone else do something you never thought they could do certainly draws your own capabilities into question. If Ashley could jump 38', I was sure going to do everything in my power to jump 39'!
I'm so grateful that CrossFit has gained popularity as a training methodology and as a competitive sport because it seems that our social understanding of fitness is benefitting from the same competitive dynamic that enabled me to jump 39' in high school. As a training methodology, it has enabled people who would never have had the opportunity to do an Olympic lift to become proficient, has strengthened people who couldn't do a single pullup to string 20+ together consecutively, and has taught people that health through exercise doesn't have to be arduous or miserable. As a competitive sport, it has given new purpose to my life, and the lives of many former athletes, who partially defined themselves as successful exercisers only to graduate from high school or college and be left with no option but to become "has beens."
Together, as CrossFitters, as trainers, as people generally interested in changing the "possible," we are changing the collective understanding of aging, parenthood, and female strength. Thanks to the masters athletes, I no longer believe that it will be hard for me to stand and sit when I am old and gray because I see them able to do much more than that, and quickly, with high intensity. Thanks to the CrossFit moms, I no longer see my 30's as a time when I will have babies, get fat, and wish I had more time to work out. Thanks to the CrossFit guys I no longer see my strength as something to be ashamed of as a woman, although I was told recently (by a non-CrossFitter) that I should probably not cut my hair short again so that my hair can hide all my muscles.
I am better because I've trained alongside people who were great throughout my athletic career. I am better still because I've found a training methodology which is just impossible enough that it is successfully redefining the possible.
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